UNEP Global Environmental Alert Released for April: Water Hyacinth-Can its Aggressive Invasion be Controlled?

Recently, the United Nations Environment Programme released a new Global Environmental Alert titled, Water Hyacinth-Can its Aggressive Invasion be Controlled? (Apr. 2013). According to the 17-page alert,

[t]he spread of invasive alien species is neither easy to manage nor easy to reverse, threatening not only biodiversity but also economic development and human wellbeing (UNEP 2012). Native to the Amazon Basin in South America water hyacinth has emerged as a major weed in more than 50 countries in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world with profuse and permanent impacts (Patel 2012, Téllez et al. 2008, Shanab et al. 2010, Villamagna and Murphy 2010). Worryingly, climate change may allow the spread of water hyacinth to higher latitudes (Patel 2012). Intensified monitoring, mitigation and management measures are needed to keep water hyacinth at unproblematic levels.
 

Prior alerts are available here, dating from Aug. 2010 to the present.